The Litvinenko Affair and the Jump to Conspiracy

Today’s Kommersant has a detailed report on the Litvinenko Affair. Most reports now concede that Litvinenko was not poisoned by thallium because his symptoms don’t match the poison, but do agree he was poisoned by something and by someone. The rapid deterioration of his health doesn’t suggest otherwise.The speculation about who did it has centered around two theories.The first theory suggests that Litvinenko was poisoned by former FSB associates perhaps seeking revenge for his accusations that the FSB is responsible for the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings.The second points the finger directly at the Kremlin because of Litvinenko’s open criticism of its policies and Putin personally.Some may collapse these two theories into one with the assumption that the FSB does not act without the Kremlin’s blessing.Such an assumption is a presumptuous because it doesn’t account for possible rouge and independent elements in the FSB.One problem that there is simply no evidence to suggest that the Kremlin is involved. Another is that doctors are currently at a loss of what is the cause of Litvinenko’s condition.

For its part, the Russian government has denied involvement.Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters, “Litvinenko is not the kind of person for whose sake we would spoil bilateral relations.”Adding, “It is absolutely not in our interests to be engaged in such activity.”

Still the perpetrators are narrowed to two Russians: Andrey Lugovoi and a mysterious man named Vladimir. According to Kommersant,

Scaramella was the last, but not only, person Litvinenko met with on the day of his poisoning. London newspapers, citing former KGB officer and defector Oleg Gordievsky, reported yesterday that Litvinenko drank tea with two Russian acquaintances on November 1. According to The Daily Telegraph, that meeting took place in a hotel and one of the people involved was Andrey Lugovoi, former head of security for ORT television. The second person was named Vladimir. Litvinenko had never met him before. Scotland Yard is not mentioning the two Russians as suspects, but admits that it is investigating the circumstances of that meeting.

Lugovoi graduated from the SupremeCouncilMilitarySchool in Moscow in 1987 and was assigned to the Kremlin division of the 9th department of the KGB of the USSR. In 1992, he was transferred to the Main Department of the Guard. In 1992 and 1993, Lugovoi worked as deputy head of the guard for Egor Gaidar, who was prime minister at the time. From 1997 to 2001, he was head of the security service for ORT. In June 2001, Lugovoi was charged with arranging the escape from custody of Nikolay Glushkov, one of the suspects in the so-called Aeroflot case. Lugovoi was sentenced in court to a year and two months’ prison, but since he had been held that long by the time the trial ended, he was released. He then went onto business.

Kommersant contacted Lugovoi yesterday. He refused to comment on the publication sin the British press where he is mentioned in connection with the attempt on Litvinenko’s life. “I won’t give any comments until I have met with representatives of the British embassy in Moscow and answered their questions to clear up the situation,” he said. “Then maybe I’ll say what I think about all of this.” He said that he contacted the British embassy yesterday morning and talked to a high-placed member of the diplomatic corps.

The British Foreign Office and MI5 and MI6 intelligence services are refraining from official actions until the first results of the Scotland Yard investigation are received. The Foreign Office stated that the Litvinenko case had been discussed with Russian diplomats, but only “in the format of a note on the high interest in it by the press.”

Western analysts’ unofficial opinions support the idea that Litvinenko was the victim of the Russian special services. “The poisoning looks like the handiwork of former agents in new dress,” said Fritz Ermath, former head of the CIA intelligence council. He recalled three poisonings, of Yury Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya (in September 2004) and Viktor Yushchenko, that the press attributed to the Kremlin. Ermath is of the opinion that “the desire of many people to accuse the Kremlin of poisoning is premature until the medical results are received… Too many different people could have done it – the Kremlin, friends of the Kremlin, and its enemies.”

The readiness for Westerns to believe that the Kremlin is behind every nefarious plot is a long standing view.In fact, suspicion, rumor and a willingness to accept conspiracy drove a whole generation of Soviet historiography. For example, many historians explain every bad thing that happened in the 1930s as a result of Stalin’s direct hand.This includes the murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934 and Ordzhonikidze’s suicide in 1937 as well as the belief that there was a plan behind collectivization and the Terror. Some historians like Robert Conquest even go so far to suggest that Maxim Gorky’s death was at Stalin’s hand despite the fact that the writer was 68 years old and the total lack of evidence.It seems that dying of “natural causes” under Stalin just didn’t happen. What is funny about all of this is that some of Stalin’s most vociferous critics have in many ways bought into the vozhd’s cult of personality.

Evidence doesn’t matter when it comes to Stalin, Russia, and now, even Putin. They are all given magical powers to direct events and history at will. This line of thinking only shows how difficult it is to break the Cold War’s cultural and ideological structures that still inform how we in the West think about Russia. As a recent editorial in the Guardian reasoned:

What is not in dispute is that there is a readiness in the west to believe the worst about Vladimir Putin’s government. Half of all Britons and more than 60% of French people think badly of Russia – and with good reason: the erosion of basic freedoms and the rule of law are regrettable hallmarks of Mr Putin’s “managed” or “sovereign” democracy. Foreigners worry about Russia’s tightening grip on the energy sector, and its bad habit of bullying and intervening in countries such as Ukraine and Georgia in the old Soviet “near abroad”. It is not entirely incredible to suggest that unaccountable security men – whose budgets and influence have been boosted in recent years – could think that their old comrade in the Kremlin might not be too bothered by the demise of a man they consider a traitor to the motherland. And if old habits die hard, priorities change too: when the Federal Security Bureau exposed British spies at work in Moscow earlier this year, the charge was not that they were involved in Smiley-type skullduggery to recruit agents but were funding Russian non-governmental organisations, now routinely subject to Soviet-style smears.

These are good reasons to be concerned about Russia for sure, but the language to explain Russia’s actions is telling of something more.The above is peppered with words and phrases like “erosion,” “tightening grip,” “bad habit of bullying,” “intervening,” “unaccountable,” and “Soviet-style.” There are other language tricks that conjure ghosts of the Soviet past. In the editorial, Litvinenko is a ‘Russian defector” and a “dissident.” Oxford defines the former as “to abandon one’s country or cause in favor of an opposing one”, suggesting a Cold War between Russia and the West continues unabated.Further, the use of “dissident” is a strong term for someone who opposes official policy and its usage in the Guardian piece inflates Litvinenko’s outspokenness to a higher level of importance and impact than it perhaps is. Though perhaps his importance as a critic of the Kremlin is on the rise.His book, Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within, is now ranked #469 on Amazon.

My point is that our own subjective imagination about Russia clouds our ability to make sense of its objective reality. The language used to think about Russia places it in a perpetual state of backsliding to authoritarianism whether it actually is or not. It is the suspicion that Russians are always up to something that makes it so difficult, even for myself, to pause and look at the facts before attributing conspiracy to the Kremlin.

This is not to suggest that Russia doesn’t share some of the blame for its negative image.Putin’s reaction to Anna Politkovskaya’s murder was cold and indifferent.In addition, Russia does have serious problems with nationalism, racism, democracy, political and press freedom, and corruption.The Kremlin’s ambivalence and lack of action feeds into assumptions about its ill intent. As an editorial in the International Herald Tribunerightly states, “instead of going into a snarling, defensive crouch over each political hit, the Russian government has to start reining in the former spies, organized criminals and Chechen quislings, and start solving some cases.”

Still, the jump to conspiracy without evidence, let alone the Tribune’s animalistic ascriptions, perpetuates Russia as some sort of abnormal society.Not only does it make Russia appear hopelessly and eternally backward, it also inevitably posits the West as normative. And this is exactly what Orientalism does: it is a position from which to claim enlightenment at the expense and detriment of the Other.If you don’t think so, take a look at the final line of the Guardian’s editorial, “Poisoning dissidents cannot be part of a modern, democratic agenda.”True enough.But who but the West is the silent measurement for what is “modern’ and ‘democratic’ in this statement?

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With all the hoopla around the Anna Politkovskaya murder case, we’ve forgotten to check in with good ol’Andrei Lugovoi to see how he’s doing. Whether valid or not the Politikovskaya murder is often linked with the Litvinenko murder with the following terms–dissident, “fierce Kremlin critic,” Berezovsky, Chechnya, KGB/FSB, and, of course, Putin.

Unlike the Politkovskaya case, however, the Litvinenko case remains stuck in a bureaucratic-diplomatic-legal quagmire. The Russian government has repeated refused allowing Lugovoi to be extradited to Britain. And so far the Russian authorities have been unsatisfied with what the British have provided by way of proof of Lugovoi’s involvement. “We have not received any evidence from London of Lugovoi’s guilt, and those documents we have are full of blank spaces and contradictions,” Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the committee investigating the Litvinenko affair at the Russian Prosecutors Office, told Rossiiskaya gazeta. The UK Crown Prosecution Office, surely tired of inquiries and what it considers statements that amount to nothing more than ravings, declined to comment on Bastrykin’s recent comments. They simply referred statements made on 22 May that stated that the Crown had sufficient evidence to try Lugovoi.

Though his future remains uncertain, that doesn’t mean Lugovoi is keeping his mouth shut. In a press conference held today, Lugovov rattled off a spite fire of allegations against, you guessed it, Boris Berezovsky. Lugovoi claims that not only is BAB responsible for the Litvinenko murder, but also Politkovskaya’s murder and sought to mastermind a plot to off Elena Tregubova. Tregubova is the author of the scandalous political tell all Tales of a Kremlin Digger. She applied for political exile in Britain earlier this year claiming that her book put her life in danger. If she really was on Berezovsky’s kill list, why the hell would she flee to Britain? I guess Andrei forgot to explain that one.

But he did say this, “At the meeting with Berezovsky held in London in late October of 2006, only one topic was under discussion – arranging protection for Elena Tregubova. Having analyzed Berezovsky’s persistent interest towards whether or not the protection of this journalist would be executed in the name of an employee of my firm,” and “that Boris Abramovich was preparing an alibi for himself and simultaneously building a chain to remove Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, Tregubova or Politkovskaya, Tregubova, Litvinenko.” He went on to suggest that Berezovsky represents the “fifth estate” in Britain.

It as if Boris didn’t already have enough to worry about. His name has been splashed all over the news after Russian general Prosecutor Chaika made veiled implications that he ordered the hit on Politkovskaya. Earlier this month, Russian authorities filled a sixth warrant for his arrest for embezzling $13 million from SBS Argo Bank in 1997. He already has the Brazilians on his back and now the Dutch and French are vying for some space on there too. Do ya feel the heat yet, Boris? Do ya?

One thing is for sure. Lugovoi should keep his pie-hole shut because he can’t seem to keep his story straight. For example, Kommersanthas discovered that the supposed “analytical documents” Lugovoi said he and Litvinenko sold to British intelligence for 10,000 euros turned out to be a scam. They weren’t government documents at all, but written by the staff at the Center for Political Information. When asked about the confidentiality of the papers, CPI head Alexei Mukhin told Kommersant that

“The excerpts that Vlast quoted were taken from our reference publication, “The System of Moscow Clubs. Elite, Lobbyists and Brain Centers” issued in 2006 and our monitoring for the balance of forces in high ranks [#122 as of March 2006]. We have been publishing these monitoring issues every other month since 2001. The reference guide on night clubs was compiled from my own information gathered by students of Russian Social University, so it can’t confidential by any means. The students went to closed clubs to gather information, so they actually carried out a journalist investigation. The monitoring of the balance of forces is an exclusive material. It is a limited edition which is distributed among CPI’s clients only – there are no more than a few dozens of them, anyway.”

When Kommersant asked Lugovoi about the documents he said “I’ve never said Litvinenko and I sold informational and analytical files about Russia to anyone in England. Litvinenko is a traitor who deserves the worst treatment by all Russian citizens!” Ah, right . . . But did you sell the documents, Mr. Lugovoi? Silence. Oh, nevermind. We’ll just use your statements from 31 May: “So, we were offering them various analytical materials in different spheres of the economy. We received money for these materials directly, and Litvinenko got 20 percent in cash from them. This is what he told me. If they were to transfer, say, $10,000, they would transfer $8,000 and give the rest to Litvinenko.”

Insert foot in mouth.

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ABC News is reporting that Polonium-210 can be purchased over the internet:

Polonium-210, the radioactive substance that killed former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, is easily available on the Internet, but it could take $1 million to amass a lethal amount, according to leading authorities.

Polonium-210 isotopes are offered online by a number of companies, including United Nuclear of New Mexico. The company sells polonium-210 isotopes for about $69 but says it would take about 15,000 orders, for a total cost of over $1 million, to have a toxic amount.

United Nuclear today posted an online clarification to answer concerns they are selling weapons of assassination.

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Scott Anderson’s article “Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power” is a throwback to the 1990s when ex-KGBmen turned mafioso, private security, or hired hands to execute nefarious plots. It is also a showcase of bygone figures. Once powerful, influential, or at least in the public eye who have since drifted into memory only to be periodically conjured up as partisan weaponry of high politics. You know the names: Boris Berezovsky, Alex Goldfarb, Aleksandr Litvinenko, and Mikhail Trepashkin. The latter serves as the hero of Anderson’s tale. The gatekeeper of a longstanding conspiracy that many Russians know well: The FSB carried out the apartment bombings on Guryanova St. in Moscow that brought down eight floors and killed ninety-four residents in their beds.

It’s been a while since Trepashkin’s name graced an English language publication. He’s spent the last several years serving two stints in the clank. In 2003, he was arrested for illegal arms possession and divulging state secrets (the former charge was eventually dropped, the latter stuck). And then just as he was freed in September 2005, he was scooped up again. He was released in 2007. Four years for likely trumped up charges. Such is what happens when you piss off the wrong people in Russia.

But now Trepashkin has come out of the woodwork to tell his story to Scott Anderson. But the details of the story aren’t really the issue. Anyone who’s familiar with the apartment bombings already knows the in-outs of the incident and the conspiracy theories behind them. Anderson didn’t even have to go to Russia. He could have just watched that horrible Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case documentary and got the story there.

The real story, however, is really the story itself. Indeed, as many Russia watchers discovered last week, Conde Nast, the company that owns GQ in Russia, made an executive decision to not run the story there. According to the NPR report on the matter:

“Conde Nast management has decided that the September issue of U.S. GQ magazine containing Scott Anderson’s article ‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’ should not be distributed in Russia,” Birenz wrote.

He ordered that the article could not be posted to the magazine’s Web site. No copies of the American edition of the magazine could be sent to Russia or shown in any country to Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers. Additionally, the piece could not be published in other Conde Nast magazines abroad, nor publicized in any way.

The story doesn’t even exist on GQ’s English site. The only place you can read the story is on Gawker and a site called Ratafia Currant. So what made Conde Nast pull the plug? Self-censorship? Commercial interests? Or was it a plain PR stunt to bring attention to an article that would most likely be ignored? Who knows. I am more inclined to think the latter.

But the thing I find funny about all of this is Gawker‘s self-appointed mission to translate the article into Russian “as a public service” because “Condé Nast has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent Russians from reading a GQ article criticizing Vladimir Putin.” I mean, really what planet are they from? Um, the Iron Curtain, like, fell eighteen years ago. There isn’t a cloak of darkness over Russia that filers out anything anti-Putin. Take it from me, the Russians don’t need Americans to save them from themselves. The last time that happened, it didn’t work out to well for the Russians.

The truth is that this conspiracy isn’t new by any means. Nor does Anderson shed any new light on it. An internet search will turn up all sorts of versions of it. Hell, even the Russian wikipedia entry on the bombings chronicles the “unofficial versions” of the story. Yet Gawker is all ecstatic that a few Russian sites have picked up their Russian translation. One is a blog on LJ. The other is one of those creepy Russian nationalist forums. Now Russian news outlets have picked up on the story and adding their own conspiracies to explain the conspiracy. But the thing is there might not even be one. According to a statement from Nikolai Uskov, the editor-in-chief of GQ Russia, published in Nezavisimaya gazeta:

It is hard for me to comprehend how this company can prevent the distribution of its own magazine anywhere. What has reverberated on Ekho Moskvy and then repeatedly said on the Internet, is not completely correct: a Russian publisher, like any other media company, is an independent product. We’re not obligated to reprint American material, and moreover receive recommendations not to do so. I have personally not received any prohibitions or directions whatsoever from management about not translating or reprinting this article. But it would also not enter my head to do it. . . . Similar material in the Russian media would appear quite strange today. There is nothing in this article that is sensational.

Basically, the story is old news. And if there is an order to not translate and publish the story, Uskov hasn’t heard of it. That’s rather strange isn’t it?

So is Conde Nast’s act of “self-censorship” merely a back handed way to stir up criticism of Putin and the strangling of the press in Russia? Perhaps. But perhaps as Evgeny Morozov notes, it just might be pure incompetence on Conde Nast’s part and now they are suffering the whiplash of the Streisand Effect. After all, Conde Nast isn’t really getting anything from this but a bunch of negative press. But as they say even bad press is good press.

But the article and the whole stunt surrounding it might just be another opportunity to piss on Putin. Though the piss will come more in a trickle than a hot steady stream. His image among Americans is already so soiled that not even the toughest Tide Stain Release could wash it clean. One more story about a shadowy Putinist plot can’t make things any worse. Nevertheless, the timing is interesting. This week is tenth anniversary of the bombings and a month shy of ten years since Putin became Prime Minister. Digging up the conspiracy is just another reminder that the strongman of Russia might have gotten his power by exploiting a tragedy that was really carried out by his buds in the FSB.

Remember children, conspiracies happen over there in the dark shadowy world of Russia. It’s that whole “‘riddle wrapped up in an enigma” thang. Here in America, we rightfully dismiss our crackpot conspiracy theorists–from the 9/11 Truthers to the tin-foil wearing Trilateral Commission believers and Lyndon La Rouchites–for what they are: nutjobs. But their Slavic equivalents? Nah. Somehow they are bearers of the truth.